


Shedding Season

by Canadiantardis



Series: Whumptober 2020 [31]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Cold Weather, Cold-Blooded Deceit | Janus Sanders, Cold-Blooded Morality | Patton Sanders, Frog Morality | Patton Sanders, Gen, Government Experimentation, Human Experimentation, Hybrids, Inspired by Maximum Ride, One Shot, Snake Deceit | Janus Sanders, Threats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27253414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canadiantardis/pseuds/Canadiantardis
Summary: All of Janus’ life had been in a cage, under a heating lamp, or under a harsh light, lab coats all around him, working on him and talking in such long words he could barely understand.
Relationships: Deceit | Janus Sanders & Morality | Patton Sanders
Series: Whumptober 2020 [31]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1920886
Comments: 12
Kudos: 59





	Shedding Season

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween, yall  
> Final day! Prompt was "Experiment"  
> I really wanted to go a lot whumpier/angstier, but sadly I think I just wasn't in it. Guess I got whumped out, lmao. Still, I think this was fun~ Enjoy~

All of Janus’ life had been in a cage, under a heating lamp, or under a harsh light, lab coats all around him, working on him and talking in such long words he could barely understand.

He was just returned after a check-up, scratching at his scales. He must be close to shedding, that always made his scales itch something fierce. He was not going to enjoy that when it came, it hurt a lot.

“Jan!” The following croak brought Janus back from thoughts of shedding to see his cage neighbour, Patton, making happy squinty eyes at him. “Everything go well?”

“I’m back, aren’t I?” His cage was wheeled back into place under the large heating lamp and Janus near melted as his limbs felt renewed in the warmth. The rest of the facility wasn’t _cold,_ not by any means, but for those who weren’t warm-blooded, it was just uncomfortable whenever they had to leave the heating lamp for the lab coats.

Patton pouted, his cheeks puffing up past the point most humans could. “You know what I meant, Janus.”

“Yes, yes, everything went okay, Patton,” Janus curled up directly under the lamp. “They still think I’m on-course for being _the_ successful hybrid with snakes.”

He didn’t understand that. He was the _only_ snake-hybrid that he’s seen in the entire facility. He’d seen a couple lizards, and a fair share of amphibians, Patton included, but he had not seen another snake.

“That’s good!” Patton croaked again, happy squinty eyes at Janus.

Janus hummed in reply, feeling very warm and comfortable and thought just for a bit he’d have a nice little nap. He earned it. With the sound of Patton’s little, subconscious croaks as background noise, and the heating lamp directly above him warming him up so nicely, he easily fell asleep.

* * *

The days were mostly boring. For hours at a time, Janus or Patton would be taken away to be worked on by the lab coats, leaving the other alone. There were rare occasions where both were taken to different rooms for the lab coats to work on at the same time, and they’d be returned at different times, depending on how long it took to do whatever they wanted. The lab coats would make comments and remarks to one another about Janus, although they never called him by name. To them, he was simply ‘the snake hybrid.’

It was a bit of a joke when they actually asked for his opinion, but they only wanted to know if he was having problems and if they were able to fix him of the problems.

Sometimes the lab coats would put him under and he’d wake up in pain, parts of his body bandaged and he’d have no idea what they did to him, and it wasn’t like he could ask. He tried when he had been much younger, but they never answered. They never answered.

Janus and Patton had been cage neighbours since they had been about seven. They would have no idea how old they were if not for the lab coats remarking how old they were, and how it seemed there were no big threats to their health because of the spliced DNA… whatever that meant.

Currently, Janus knew they were roughly nineteen, which, according to the lab coats, was an important age… for some reason. Maybe it was because they had been alive and hadn’t died yet that it was important. He wasn’t all too sure, and he doubted he would ever know anyway.

By now, Janus was sure he knew everything that the lab coats wanted from him. He wasn’t one to fight, even though he was certain he’d win with the venom he made in his salivary glands. According to the lab coats, he had been spliced with some venomous yellow-bellied sea snake, which made sense concerning his scale colouration. His back and most of his face was covered by black scales, while the front of his torso was yellow, and his limbs were a weird collection of both. When he had learned snakes didn’t have arms or legs, Janus had honestly been a bit surprised he still had his own limbs, but he had to guess that was due to his human half.

Patton was also a model subject, although a lot more meek when it came to interacting with the lab coats, at least from his recounting. Patton was apparently spliced with a poison dart frog, which made him poisonous to touch or attack - “they wear really thick gloves if they need to move me physically for anything,” Patton had once said - and made his skin an odd shade of blue. Most of his body was a sky blue with his arms and legs darker, and he had little black spots all over, including around his eyes. Patton had told Janus once that the ones around his eyes looked like he was constantly wearing glasses, like what some of the lab coats wore to see better.

Janus was in the middle of shedding when he was wheeled away from Patton, not that he really noticed. Shedding was painful and uncomfortable as hell. He had to scratch at places and break the old skin enough to pull it off, hissing in pain like he was ripping new scales off - he never had, he was much too careful to hurt himself like that - and all but panting by the time he freed part of his body of the restricting old skin.

He barely paid attention to his surroundings until he realized how cold it had gotten. His movements became lethargic and he was having trouble keeping his eyes open, even as every part of his mind was firing off too fast for him to think. The building wasn’t supposed to be this cold, he knew that for a fact, it was only ever just cool enough to be uncomfortable, not cold enough for him to feel himself shutting down. He was fairly certain he knew the word for what was happening, but couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was. Not that it mattered if he knew the word or not, he could barely move.

“What… what are you doing?” He had to push himself to not mumble his words, leaning against the back of his cage.

“Testing how long you can survive in colder temperatures,” one lab coat said, and _when had he shown up?_ Janus hadn’t noticed him at all.

Janus wanted to ask more questions, but found it was taking too much energy to even think of the questions he wanted to ask. He slid down the cage wall, his breathing slow and lethargic. It felt like nothing he had ever felt before. He could barely move, barely think, barely breathe. He noticed when he was alone much too late, and sank to the floor, curling in on himself as if he could generate even the slightest bit of warmth by himself.

* * *

Janus was given food once a week, which was fine. He didn’t mind, it kept him alive and he was fairly certain he wasn’t going to die or get malnourished. Something in the back of his mind whispered how he could survive without food longer than humans. Janus had no idea where he had heard that, but it seemed to be true, as he had been kept in the cold place for over two months, and only given food and water once every week. He ate slowly, barely chewing his food in favour of swallowing everything whole since that didn’t waste energy.

Once he was given his food, the lab coats would leave him alone, and Janus would simply be, unable to actually do anything. He slept more often than not. He wasn’t too sure what happened to his shedding, he barely felt anything, and when he opened his eyes, he saw patches flaking off. The lab coats _really_ chose just the worst timing for this particular experiment, huh? Idly, he wondered if they had even thought about his shedding. It was fairly obvious that was what he was doing when his cage was wheeled off, and yet they somehow thought it was a good idea to let him be partially shed and with no energy to finish. Even if he had enough energy, he couldn’t figure out where he still needed to shed, he barely felt anything at all besides the cool, cool air that wrapped around him like a sleepy blanket. It wasn’t warm, or comfortable, but there wasn’t much else he could do.

He stayed in the cold room for another couple weeks before he was finally wheeled out and the warmth - not heating lamp warm, but the usual warmth-coolness of the rest of the facility - was a shock to the system. The first thing he felt was an insane amount of pin-needles _all over_ to an unbearable degree and he couldn’t work fast enough to shake it out, wanting to pull his own skin off before he realized it was the old skin. He realized he was uncomfortably tight in his own skin and had to scratch, he had to free himself before it got any worse, whatever that would look like.

Janus had no time besides re-starting the process of shedding over again with sluggish, inaccurate scratches at the flakey old skin before he was brought to one of the check-up rooms.

“You’ve survived. That’s good to see,” one of the lab coats said with a small amount of surprise, as if he had really thought Janus would have died during the two and a half months trapped in the cold room.

Janus had to remind himself that the lab coats didn’t really care if he lived or died, as long as they could collect the data. He pushed away the urge to scowl as he pulled the dead, tight skin off of him limb by limb, ignoring the lab coat as he spoke.

At least, he did until the lab coat kicked his cage, the entire frame ringing and Janus hissed, covering his ears.

“I asked you a simple question,” the lab coat repeated, and maybe it was because Janus was getting energy back after being so cold for so long, he didn’t entirely want to lay down and submit.

“And I am trying to ssshed, which had been ssseveral weeksss too long becaussse you all ssseemed to forget I wasss in the middle of it,” he hissed loud enough to be heard, not looking out of his cage. He only focused on his body and getting rid of the old skin. “You try being in tight ssskin without being able to do anything about it for monthsss.”

Another kick, harder this time, had Janus flinch and hiss again, yanking on a patch of newer scales rather than old.

“No back-talk,” the lab coat ordered, and Janus couldn’t stop the scowl from twisting his face, though he kept his head down. “Answer the question; how was the experience?”

“There’sss nothing to sssay,” Janus hated his hissing, it was an easy tell to whoever knew him that he was mad or upset and he hated when they knew. “I barely moved the entire time. What more do you want?”

“I’ll rephrase, then,” the lab coat crouched to be eye-level with Janus, who refused to look at him. “Answer my questions, and I won’t bring you back there to stay for another two months. Who knows, maybe we can see how that affects your shedding situation.”

That had Janus snapping his head up and staring at the lab coat in disbelief, but found the expression given to him one of no remorse. _He was serious, and he’d do it._

He looked away first, just barely seeing the smirk on the lab coat’s face before he stood up. “Now, let’s go over everything again…”

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [ LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:  
> Feedback
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
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> 
> This author replies to comments.
> 
> If the others had been here (which is very likely) they would have been in other places around the facility. The twins, as they would have been identical twins and thus from the same ovum when the experiments started(imagine the surprise from both scientists and mother when they find out she's carrying twins), would both be spliced with octopus DNA, specifically Blue-Ringed octopus. Virgil would have been spliced with cat DNA, specifically Maine Coone. Finally, Logan would be spliced with crow DNA, specifically Hooded Crow~


End file.
